Hello colleagues today is Tuesday
October 20th and I'm greeting you today on the Rockville
Campus
at the Math and Science Center here in the Macklin
Tower. As you can see behind me this is a
busy hub of student engagement. Students
are working through the very significant
curriculum that we offer here at the
college and having support structures to
do it. I have to say these learning
centers are one of my favorite things at
our institution. Speaking of students I'm
excited to share with you as I did at
last night's board meeting that we have
two of our students i believe in Hillman
Entrepreneurs Program who are invited to
pitch their ideas for a start-up in a
competitive Maryland program. This was a
bus tour that had entrepreneurs and
venture capitalists who able to hear the
finalists from those rounds will be
invited to consider submitting in a final
application for consideration in funding
so that's a very exciting thing but you
know that two of our own students were
part of that is quite exciting.
In addition to that fifty of our students and some faculty and
staff were
able to go to the Gaithersburg Campus of
Lockheed Martin where they had the
opportunity to hear about the current
state of cybersecurity and all of the
efforts that Lockheed Martin does in
terms of our country's safety as it
relates to cybersecurity but also what
the future career options are in
cybersecurity. I thought that was a
wonderful opportunity. It makes our
education real but it also speaks to the
tight partnerships that we have as a
community college with businesses in our
community. And to keep our students
actively engaged around our Board issues
we're continuing to talk about issues
related to achieving the promise and
last night's faculty senate joined the
senates and the faculty council joined the
Board a constituent conversation around
the successes as it relates to students
learning here at Montgomery College, our
own scorecard where the gaps and how do
we start to fill those gaps and most
importantly if we are to continue to
focus on that 59 percent of students
that been talking about all semester
what do we have to do is an institution
to respond to that. It was a truly
rewarding conversation, so grateful to
all the constituents. Next month the
Board will be speaking with our students
so I'm very excited about that.
In other board news I submitted a Board
report where I talked about a number of
issues but in particular I spent quite a
bit of time talking about the pathways
into Montgomery College, how do we on
Board students have to admit them how do
students navigate a very complex matriculation process to
actually get to
class on the first day it was very
eye-opening and also included a video
that talks about the student experience,
I'm very excited about that and as we
start to look at these pathways and intentionally carve them out
for our students is
going to be imperative that we reflect
on what we do very well, hold those
points but also think about the improvements we need to make for
the
future. The Board approved several
contracts last night, in particular they
renewed a contract for our inter-campus
shuttle, very excited about that because
we know that that allows students to
move between campuses to take classes, it
helps us more effectively guide our
academic playing around scheduling but
it also helps students secure courses
they need across the institution. They're
excited about that and then we also had
the Board approved a contract to
repair what I believe is a fifty year
old equipment that we have in our planetarium.
We know this program serves multiple programs in our STEM
area
but is also a very popular a program for people in the
community to come and be a part
of the offerings of our planetarium so
thank you very much for the Board for approving
that. And that is on our Takoma Park Silver
Spring Campus. The last thing I'd like
to say that we also discussed next year's
capital budget. The Board heard a first
presentation speaking to the budget
that will be sent to the county
executive in the County Council for
consideration as it relates to our capital
projects and keeping with that we are
continuing to emphasize the importancy
of the Student Services Building at the
Rockville campus and how the state needs
to continue to advance that. Thanks to
all of you have been active parts in that
role helping to guide tours having
thoughtful conversations and as we move
into the advocacy period we're going to
see more and more of that coming. I hope
each and every one of you is having a
wonderful semester, I hope that you're
also taking time to enjoy the wonderful
activities I understand this week is humanities week.
So I would hope that you take an opportunity to remember
why we
do this work, it's about hopefully
impacting the human experience, all of
which the humanities help us do each and
everyday. It's mid-terms I know it's
crazy but most importantly I hope that
you all are having a good semester and
taking care of each other while we take
care of our students thank you and be
well.